Hungarians Protest Their Leader by the Tens of Thousands

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Demonstrators on Sunday in Budapest. The protest drew some of the largest crowds against Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, with organizers estimating attendance around 70,000.CreditCreditLaszlo Balogh/Reuters

By Reuters

April 9, 2017

BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungarians rose up on Sunday in one of the largest protests against the seven-year rule of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, dismayed by legislation that could force one of Hungary’s top international universities out of the country.

Central European University, a school founded by the American financier George Soros, could be forced to leave Hungary after a bill passed last week in Parliament by Mr. Orban’s Fidesz party set stringent new conditions under which it must operate.

The bill has led to criticism from hundreds of leading academics worldwide, as well as from the United States government and the European Union.

The protest drew some of the largest crowds against Mr. Orban’s administration, with organizers estimating attendance around 70,000. The crowd marched across a bridge over the Danube and filled the square outside the Parliament building, which was defended by several lines of police officers, some in riot gear.

Thousands of people, mostly students, stayed on after the main protest for an unannounced march on the building of the Education Secretariat, and then on to the headquarters of Fidesz, where they chanted anti-Fidesz slogans. Then they blocked Oktogon, a busy intersection in central Budapest.

Though passionate, the protest remained peaceful throughout.

President Janos Ader must sign the bill by Monday to make it law. The protesters said they wanted to persuade Mr. Ader to reject the measure and refer it to a constitutional review.

Kornel Klopfstein, a doctoral student at Bielefeld University in Germany and a protest organizer, said, “The government wants to silence pretty much everyone who doesn’t think the same as them, who thinks freely, who can be liberal, can be leftist.”

“According to the government, one of the centers of these people is at C.E.U.,” he added. “We should stand up for academic freedom and for C.E.U.”

The government has been targeting dissent in other ways, as well, including by proposing tighter rules on nongovernmental organizations, which will have to register with the authorities if they have yearly foreign income of at least 7.2 million forints, or $25,000.

The rules are aimed at organizations financed by Mr. Soros, a Hungarian-born American who has for decades given away billions of dollars of his fortune to support causes of a liberal “open society” worldwide.

The right-wing Mr. Orban has often vilified Mr. Soros, whose ideals are squarely at odds with Mr. Orban’s view that European culture is under an existential threat from migration and multiculturalism. He has frequently said that NGOs are doing Mr. Soros’s bidding.

“The government is always looking for someone to fight with, and Soros seems like a perfect person for this because he funds NGOs in Hungary and he funds C.E.U. as well,” Mr. Klopfstein said.

Michael Ignatieff, the rector of Central European University, has said the school will continue operations as normal. He has demanded that the legislation be scrapped and that international guarantees of academic freedoms be added to current legal safeguards.

The United States State Department will send diplomats to Budapest next week to address the crisis, said Mr. Ignatieff, who spent several days in Washington to lobby the government, lawmakers and the news media.

“They want to completely undermine and eradicate what remains of civil society,” said Bara Bognar, 40, a finance professional. “This is the first protest I have ever participated in. There is a level at which you must be present, so here I am.”